an unfathomable combination of understanding and misunderstanding
by EPICphantom104
Summary: In 1935, Dr. Bravestone convinced Ruby Roundhouse to come with him and a ragtag group of adventurers into the jungles of Jumanji for a three-year-long archeological expedition. In 1946, they reappear, missing a friend. The story of those eleven years and a little bit after. Ruby-centric. Avatars-are-people-too-AU. Updates rarely. Smolder/Ruby, Oberon/Seaplane.
1. Chapter 1

Ruby "Roundhouse" Rogers was not a little girl. She was a twenty-five-year-old woman, goddammit, and deserved to be treated as such.

The weirdo-muscle-bound-freak, whose name was apparently _Doctor-Smolder-yeah-right-Bravestone-cause-that's-likely,_ and his self-proclaimed sidekick, " _Moose_ ", had barged into Ruby's life much like a wounded rhino. Loudly, stubbornly, and with little consideration for her mental health. Also, they kept knocking shit over and not even offering compensation. Like, the fuck. Who does that? She spent years curating this collection and _I-swear-to-god-Moose-get-away-from-that-right-now-everything-in-this-fucking-house-is-worth-more-than-you._ Ruby silently wondered whether or not she would be worthy of being called "Killer of Men" if she didn't kill these morons in particular. The only thing keeping her from switching on her pocket radio right then and there was when _Doctor-pretty-boy-Smolder_ handed her the envelope. Two weeks worth of negotiations, six kegs from her brother's alehouse, four stuttering professors and five hundred thousand dollars later, Ruby found herself wondering the same thing. Again. Why shouldn't she just kill them now? It wouldn't be all that difficult, just turn up the volume and see where the music takes you…

The music took her to the airplane hangar they were staking out until _the-good-Doctor-Smolder's_ contact came through, an old dogfighter called Charles " _Chuck"_ Kobb. Chuck was to get the still undecided group to the jungle in question. Jumanji.

They still weren't entirely sure who would be joining them. Naturally, it would be _Smolder_ for _personal_ _reasons_ (read: unknown-vague-and-arguably-meaningless-reasons-no-one-wanted-to-talk-about). Plus _Moose_ for _emotional support_ (read: more-" _personal reasons"_ ) and Ruby for _impersonal reasons_ (read: bashing-heads-in). There were a few others being considered, including-but-not-limited-to: Rudyard "Tipper" Patches (AKA: The-Comms-Guy), Olive Park (AKA: the-Photographer-Lady), Professor Sheldon " _Shelly"_ Oberon (AKA: the-Map-Guy), and Vincent Matthews (AKA: the-I-swear-I'm-not-an-Intern-Guy). Then there was still the question of whether or not Kobb would even show, and who would replace him if he didn't. They needed a pilot, and a war-dog was much better than some little punk who thought he was hot shit. If Kobb didn't show, they'd have to start back at square one with the pilot, and that could jeopardize funding for their already struggling expedition.

Apparently, the name was "Mouse", not "Moose". Mouse had been held hostage by some warlord in Peru for a little over a year, according to the tale Ruby had been told no less than seven times since they started the stakeout. He was just beginning to lose hope when * _gasp*_ the Greatest Hero of All Time AKA _Doctor-you-won't-believe-it's-not-Smolder-fuckin-Bravestone_ showed up out of the blue and dragged his sorry ass outta there. Maybe Ruby was being a little harsh, but c'mon. The guy's names were literally _Smolder-as-in-that-weird-constipated-halfway-bitchface-people-sometimes-get-Bravestone-as-in-a-courageous-rock_ and " _Moose- Sorry- Mouse_ ". And they wanted to pay her massive amounts of money of dubious origins so that she would travel with them through a jungle she's never heard of before for seemingly no reason other than sex appeal? Yeah… That didn't sound sketchy at all. Nope. Not even a little bit.


	2. Chapter 2

Some people have the strangest skillsets.

They finally had a pilot, because even though Chuck flaked, Oberon (who they decided to keep) was able to get them some student's-girlfriend's-sister-in-law's-second-cousin's-ex-boyfriend's-older-brother's-childhood-best-friend named Jefferson "Seaplane" McDonough who couldn't fly a plane for the life of him but was half decent with a helicopter. Seaplane was also damn good at making margaritas, mojitos, martinis, mimosas, and the like. Pretty much anything alcoholic starting with an "m". As a joke, almost twenty years after the fact, Ruby gifted Seaplane a methuselah she had refilled with a spiced mead called metheglin.

The fact he had actually corrected her- _No, Rubes, that isn't technically a methuselah because technically those are just wine, not mead._ Because this was his thing, the way her thing was dance fighting and Mouse's thing was worshipping the ground _Smolder_ walked on.

Seaplane is good at a few things, and while bartending is one of them, another is something he maybe should have thought about before jumping at the chance to run away to Jumanji for god knows how long.

Seaplane attracts mosquitoes the way Ruby attracts men. They flock towards him like starving vultures to an abandoned kill. They ignore everything and everyone else in the vicinity and head straight for you, and you just know that they are coming and that there is literally nothing you can do about it at this point so you just need to tough it out and pray you walk away unscathed.

And Ruby winces when she catches him scratching as they start building a fire to last through the night that's been creeping up on them for a while now. She pretends not to notice though, and if she lets him borrow the apple cider vinegar she brought for this exact reason, no one has to know.

Ruby wonders for just a moment why Seaplane didn't bring any honey or basil or apple cider vinegar of his own, but soon she's too busy escaping maniacal-dirt-bikers and giant-albino-rhinos to even care.


	3. Chapter 3

Ruby "Roundhouse" Rogers was an incredible cook. Like, it was actually scary.

She could do this thing with literally any type of meat ever, and boom. It would actually taste like chicken. She was very proud of herself. It was a secret family recipe for survivalists like her Uncle Todd. People who built themselves personal underground bunkers or married Aunt Josephine or kept a sawed-off shotgun hidden underneath their pillow or took obscure job offers in-the-middle-of-the-jungle-in-the-middle-of-nowhere. The fact of the matter was that the Rogers were by no means perfect and that it was quite fitting for her to know how to cook "chicken surprise" like a boss.

Mouse had been surprised when she told him that she would be doing the cooking after he had botched their rations that first week out in Jumanji. Apparently, he and Smolder had been suffering through his incompetence as a cook since they had left Peru. Ruby had banned him from even carrying the food, and had ended up dividing it between herself, the Professor, and Dr. Bravestone. She had become the uncontested supreme leader in all food-related activities ever since she had taken over the ration preparation and their quality of life had increased exponentially.

But that's what happens when you get a little boy to do a real woman's work. Everyone got food poisoning and fucking died. Because Mouse.

So every morning, Ruby got up a little bit later than everyone else. Every morning, the team thanked her for everything-that-you've-done-for-us-darlin' as she handed them anything from a scavenged five-star omelet to a nutty-berry-paste-y-thing on stale bread. Every evening, everyone gathered around the firepit for _weiners-on-a-stick_ or expertly seasoned _definitely-not-chicken-stew_. Every meal was run through Ruby first. This was for their protection, of course, and no one argued after what Mouse accidentally did to Dr. Bravestone. The poor man hadn't been able to move more than twenty paces before vomiting all over the campsite and whoever else was nearby. Sometimes, on slow days, Ruby helped pick sick out of the ridges on the underside of people's boots. She was also, on a totally unrelated note, the only person allowed- other than Smolder, naturally- to touch large pointy objects such as knives, wooden stakes, and, on the rarest of occasions, harpoon guns.


	4. Chapter 4

When Ruby was a child, her parents bought her and her brother a cat. His name was Peaches.

Cats do this thing where they sleep on your bed or your laundry or your prom dress on the night before and you don't even react because it's a cat.

Peaches liked to sleep smack dab in the middle of literally anything and everything Ruby did. _Oh, you want to read a book? Well, screw you, I'm gonna sleep on the biggest comfiest couch in the whole house. Oh, you want to read the newspaper? Well, screw you, I'm gonna sleep directly on top of said newspaper_.

Peaches also killed small animals that strayed too close to his territory and left them on her windowsill, but that was a different story entirely.

Peaches died of some infection he had received after an alley cat clawed off one of his ears and they couldn't afford a vet.

Smolder was a lot like Peaches.

No matter what it was that Ruby was trying to do, Smolder was somehow always in the thick of it, just waiting patiently on top of that newspaper. They traded off on their night watch schedule every evening with thinly pressed smiles. They unpacked the food together while Seaplane worked on the fire and Mouse set up tents. They refilled water canteens together and trained together and sometimes, late at night, when they were switching out watch shifts, they would sit up and talk together.

The whole group was a unit, a team, but Ruby and Smolder, as the two guard dogs of the group, were forced much closer. And as appealing as the thought may have been at the beginning when all she knew was that _she-couldn't-fit-the-whole-bicep-in-her-hand(!),_ it was beginning to be a tad ridiculous.

They worked like a well-oiled machine if one cog really irritated the other.

She supposed that she must be Smolder's Peaches as well, but _well-there's-this-thing-called-personal-space-yeah-uhhuuhhhh-thanks_.

Another parallel was that he was constantly trying to impress her, while still perfectly content with irritating the everloving bejesus outta her.

 _Hey, Ruby. Here's that dead bird I couldn't be bothered to eat and you probably didn't want! Now I'm gonna sit up all night yowling for no apparent reason! Toodle-oo!_

 _Hey Ruby. Here's that ancient artifact that you don't know what to do with and probably don't want to deal with! Now I'm gonna sleep in a tree instead of keep watch like I'm supposed to! Toodle-oo!_

It was like Peaches had reincarnated into a buff Adonis.

A hot buff Adonis who was _somehow-always-sitting-on-that-stupid-newspaper._

A hot buff Adonis and _she-couldn't-fit-the-whole-bicep-in-her-hand(!)_ and that was a weird combination of _absolutely-undisputable-not-okay-on-so-many-different-levels_ and _actually-completely-and-totally-okay-for-a-surprisingly-large-amount-of-reasons-including-but-not-limited-to-the-fact-that-she-couldn't-fit-the-whole-bicep-in-her-hand(!)._

Needless to say, she always kept her cool around him, and she was positive that their relationship would remain completely professional for as long as they spent in Jumanji.

"You okay, Doll?" Smolder slammed a hand on her shoulder, and Ruby spun around with a right hook that landed solidly on his… well, his smolder.

"Damn, Boss." Ruby confidently ignored the burning in her ears as she rubbed the back of her own neck, silently thanking the Lord almighty that she wasn't wearing her brass knuckles at the moment. "I think I should be asking you that."

Smolder's smile was strained, but he didn't move his hand, instead commenting that Ruby might benefit from investing in a machete the next time she took a contract in the rainforest. She quirked an eyebrow at him.

"Hey, Pally." Ruby pried his fingers off of her shoulders with little difficulty. "You're bleeding all over the place."

Smolder's busted lip and bruised cheek were treated by a grumbling Professor not a half hour later. They healed in a matter of weeks, but it would be months before Ruby stopped wondering what would have happened if she hadn't punched him at that moment. He had been showing genuine concern for her well-being, and she had just turned and slammed her fist into his face. Talk about gratitude!

But Smolder had snuck up on her, and he knew about her paranoia thing! It was totally his fault all of this happened. Ruby was not responsible for anything, and she didn't have time for these _weird-accidental-halfway-guilt-trips-or-whatever._

What ifs had no place in the mind of Ruby-goddamn-Roundhouse even though she sometimes couldn't help but imagine where that _you-okay-doll?_ could have gone.

What ifs had no place here.

Also, Peaches, get off the damn newspaper.


	5. Chapter 5

"Rogers," a shaft of sunlight slips into her tent as the Professor poked his head in to wake her up. "You need to get up. Bravestone wants us on the move by sunrise. Rogers?"

Ruby lifted her head from the rucksack she had been resting on for the past few nights and began to debate the merits of a jaguar-pelt pillow. Seeing her shift was enough for the Professor. He was gone as fast as he appeared, and Ruby could hear him toddle away in the deafening silence just before the dawn.

There were times when you couldn't hear anything over the sounds of everything. Birds chirping louder than their footsteps, as they hiked through the mountains. Wind howling as it tore through the treetops, louder than the Professor's strangled breaths. The cicadas singing louder than Mouse's clanging rucksack.

But it was always this moment, just before the birds started chirping, just after the cicadas finished their songs and only on the lucky days the wind didn't bother screaming. This was the moment, no squirrels chattering, no snakes hissing, no rain clouds rumbling, no Seaplane whistling, no water rushing, no trees shifting back and forth with the weight of a weirdo-muscle-bound-freak she didn't really mind watching shimmy up the side of the trunks. _(Smolder was_ very _good at climbing trees.)_

It was the lucky, strange, unreal moments where you held your breath and the loudest thing was the silence and no one spoke in case they were the first to break it.

The humid atmosphere was oppressive. It pushed down on the travelers in a way that, while foreign at first, would soon feel almost homey as they acclimated to the jungle. One day, many years later, in a cramped apartment not fit for one person, let alone _three,_ Ruby would lie awake for nights on end, listening to trains whistling and automobiles rumbling and people murmuring as they marched back and forth and wonder how she would ever fall asleep with all this horrible noise.

But people adapt, and Ruby would learn to love the harsh silence after a few months and to tolerate the harsh sounds after a few years.

She spied the others packing up camp from the sliver of an opening in the front of her tent. Mouse was crouched over the larger tent he shared with _Smolder_ , packing up both of their things in the massive pack he had become known for. The Professor was talking quietly with Seaplane as the younger man crouched over the firepit. Prof must have already packed up their tent as well. Ruby was the only one who had her own personal tent, and sometimes she regretted it. Times like these, when _Smolder_ was refilling canteens nearby and Seaplane was staring moodily and only Mouse and the Professor were doing actual work. But that was just life. Besides, she didn't regret it when she had to get up in the middle of the night to pee and found Mouse kicked out of the tent for his usual chainsaw snores. Even the great _Doctor-Bravestone_ got fed up with this little wannabe assistant. Or, sorry, _weapons-valet._

But as wonderful as the idea of a dedicated assistant to do all Ruby's grunt work was, she couldn't imagine having to share her tent, her _personal-human-being-not-jungle-bubble,_ with anyone else. Ever.

A smaller part of her that she quietly squished reminded her that she would also have to share her teammates- _her boys-_ with this theoretical assistant. She would have to share Seaplane's margaritas, and the Professor's obsession over fossils and dead things (that was definitely _not_ in his resume), and Mouse's _explosive-cake-induced-_ diarrhea, and, possibly most horrifically, she would have to share _Doctor-Smolder-Bravestone's_ smolder and dirt-bike stunts and climbing of random trees and his stupidly accurate _hunches_. She would have to share not only the life she had built in this hostile world but also these people who made it possible to do so.

And that, Ruby decided (as she watched the Professor smile softly at Seaplane, Mouse jumping on top of unruly sleeping bags and _Smolder_ hiking back into the camp to immediately make eye contact with _her_ of all people,) was never going to happen. She nodded to the doctor, studiously ignoring the light blush on her tanned cheeks. He nodded back firmly, before turning to help Mouse finish packing up. Ruby "Roundhouse" Rogers watched the strangely domestic scene she had become accustomed to in the past months they had spent stuck out in Jumanji.

Ruby knew what she had told Smolder Bravestone with that nod. Ruby Roundhouse would put her life on the line for these people. She would do anything to keep her team alive. And it didn't scare her half as much as it should have.


	6. Chapter 6

Ruby was quite embarrassed. In her line of work, it was no surprise that most people had some sort of drive, some background or origin story pushing them to be the best. You didn't fight for your life to make a living just for the hell of it. Unless you were _Ruby-certifiable-nutjob-Roundhouse_ apparently.

She didn't have a backstory. Her parents were both very much alive and her brother had survived the Great War. The family wasn't particularly well off, but they weren't ever working from paycheck to paycheck. The worst tragedy Ruby had ever faced was when her Grandmother kicked the bucket during her seventh birthday party. Ruby's experiences with men had not left her jaded or widowed. The worst heartbreak she had experienced had been dwarfed considerably by a distant childhood friend's suicide just weeks later. There was no reason for her to exact vengeance for anyone or from anyone. She had no drive beyond bettering herself and playing with the cards she had been dealt in life.

Ruby had never felt true pain. She had never been scorned for who she was. People came to her because her skills spoke for themselves. People paid thousands for her services and she was lauded for her work by all her past clients.

Ruby was never unhappy with this arrangement. She was a fighter, a bodyguard, a mercenary, a gun for hire with a pocket radio. There was no reason for her to be jealous of the pain and suffering some of her comrades had been through over the years.

But it made some things more difficult.

Like consoling a weepy Professor on the anniversary of his parent's demise.

She patted him on the back awkwardly as he plopped down next to her with muffled sobs.

Apparently, Ruby had been deemed 'most-likely-to-understand' by the older man. It didn't matter that Mouse's little angelic sisters were, a long time ago, beaten every day by his abusive mother and negligent father. It didn't matter that Seaplane had been through foster home after foster home when his parents kicked him out. It didn't matter that Smolder's dead wife haunted his nightmares and occasionally his waking hours.

It didn't matter that she had never experienced the kinds of horrible awful loss that they had.

All that mattered was that she was the one that sharpened knives menacingly. She was the one that didn't need to make threats to convince you that she could and would snap your neck in an instant. She was the one named Ruby Roundhouse, Killer of Men.

And she was the one who wouldn't ask, wouldn't tell, wouldn't judge, and wouldn't run away.

 _(In all honesty, she was usually too flustered by their trust to react physically or verbally and would clam up for a while wondering how psychologically sound it was to wish she had been through the kind of pain they had, if only to understand exactly why they were crying on her shoulder.)_

Ruby didn't wake up Smolder for his watch that night. She just let him sleep as she watched over the camp from a hammock the Doctor had hung up in the trees sometime before.

The sky was dazzling, hundreds of thousands of stars, unencumbered by the light pollution the had known all her life. Ruby wondered what true pain felt like as the watched Crux, the Southern Cross, disappear under the treeline.

When Smoler got up anyways, his eyes haunted and his posture stiff and sweaty, Ruby clamored out of the hammock, careful not to wake anyone as she scrambled down the tree trunk ungracefully. She nodded to him before finally ducking into her tent. No one would come in or out for almost twelve hours.

Smolder's nightmares had woken him up.

Ruby decided that the understanding wasn't worth the pain.


	7. Chapter 7

His actual name was Matteo. Doctor Matteo Emmett Richardson. But who wants to fund a suicide mission into the biggest-rainforest-in-the-middle-of-nowhere-ever-of-all-time lead by Dr. Matteo Emmett Richardson? No one in their right mind. But a name like " _Smolder-fuckin-Bravestone"_ gets people and institutions lined up at your door to get in on that action.

That was what made things hard for Ruby. Her family wouldn't mind her bringing home a Doctor Matteo Emmett Richardson for Thanksgiving. But a _Doctor-Smolder-ing-intensity-Bravestone_ would not go over well with her parents. Not even mentioning the likely possibility of a five-foot-stowaway-Mouse-Finbar trying to stay in _Doctor-Smolder's_ luggage. Her brother would laugh his ass off and her parents would give her that disappointed " _of-course-you-picked-the-one-with-the-gay-lover"_ look _again_ and she wouldn't even be able to explain that " _this-time-it's-different-Mom"_ and Mouse's weird-ass relationship with _Smolder_ and the codependency borne from not leaving someone's side for almost a decade of life-or-death experiences.

Sometimes, being named something as ordinary and respectable as Matteo Emmett Richardson didn't matter when everyone knew you better as Doctor Smolder Bravestone.

Ruby "Roundhouse" Rogers wondered if she really minded all that much, but watching the tips of his ears go red (as he scrambled for a worthy rebuttal to her not-so-subtle-snickers over something neither actually gave much thought) was too rewarding for her to even consider stopping.


	8. Chapter 8

Ruby-fucking-Roundhouse never got sick.

It just wasn't a thing that happened.

Sure, chicken pox, _that one time_. And yeah, maybe she got the flu when she was like, eight. And ten. And fourteen. And nineteen. But that was it! And she did almost miss a job interview right out of college. But she did make it to the interview.

Really! Who's counting?

Just because she had the sniffles didn't mean that she automatically had the plague. Okay, so her face was a little pale. And her eyes were a little sunken. But that didn't mean anything! She was just sleep deprived and on her period or something. That's why she was so tired and irritable and crap. It wasn't like she was actually _sick_ or anything.

Because Ruby-fucking-Roundhouse never gets sick.

This was all running through her head as Seaplane passed around beans in cans for dinner. They sat around the fire, huddled under sleeping bags and clustered together to conserve heat. Ruby was practically a sneezing pile of blankets.

She wasn't sick, _because she didn't get sick!_

Ruby sulked under her blankets, ignoring the way they dragged on the forest floor as she wriggled them back and forth to get comfortable. (Jumanji had a habit of being boiling during the day and freezing during the night, so it was usually a good policy to just wear long pants and stick it out.) The older, rattier blankets were slipping dangerously close to the firepit, but it really wasn't like she could do much about it. Her hands were wrapped up in almost as many layers as the rest of her, plus she was freezing her ass off, and it wasn't like anyone was gonna miss one or two of these things.

Oberon reached out with his designated-fire-poker-stick to fish out the end of one of the endangered blankets. Mouse picked up a few of the rest, fussing over their placement as he scolded her for _shiftin-em-round-like-tha._ Seaplane leaned against the Professor's leg inconspicuously and offered her a drink from her canteen, though his attention seemed to be elsewhere for once in his life. Smolder knocked his shoulder against hers and offered to spoon feed her teasingly. She snorted, face flushed from the fire and the blankets and the soft warmth of knowing that these precious idiots were doing all this for her.

She woke up the next morning covered in bug bites, a sonnova gun headache, and the fever of the century.

Someone had put her back in her tent after she drifted off, but the clueless bastard had left her outside of her sleeping bag and gave her a rock for a pillow. And she could barely shout at them to _get-your-goddamn-asses-out-here-right-now_ because _who-was-the-fuckin-genius-who-decided-to-put-my-head-on-a-fuckin-rock(?!)_ and _where-the-fuck's-my-pocket-radio(?)_.

Ruby managed.

After all, Ruby-fucking-Roundhouse never got sick.

It just wasn't a thing that happened.


	9. Chapter 9

This is going to be extremely important in a moment, so it is of vital importance that you remember it well.

Ruby "Roundhouse" Rogers, Killer of Men, does not, has not, and will never, _do_ snakes.

It wasn't a conscious decision, nor was it some kind of phobia explained by childhood experiences.

Well, there was that one time that Margaret Westwood put a garden snake in her hair in second grade, but she had promptly broken the other girl's nose, and that had been the end of it.

The point is that Ruby didn't _do_ snakes. She just couldn't.

Fact of life.

The sky is blue.

The grass is green.

Ruby doesn't _do_ snakes.

That included being near them, seeing them, hearing them, touching them, or even imagining that the slithery bastards might be out there somewhere.

Yes, Macy Howard from fourth grade, just fucking try that shit with me.

Showed her.

Fucking pranks.

Not cool.

Anyways.

So when she found a horribly vicious and evil looking serpent slithering through her tent late one night (or was it early in the morning?) Ruby found herself wondering if it was really a smart idea to only keep one sawed-off on her person at all times.

Several well-placed blasts tore through the snake. The opening flaps swung wildly as Smolder shot in like a bullet, one hand holding a machete and the other a boomerang. A lesser woman would have snickered at the mental pun, or _god forbid_ , spoke it aloud, but Ruby was no lesser woman.

She was completely composed, cooly staring down the villainous creature.

Ruby calmly reloaded the shotgun, ignoring her newest guest. Smolder was looking around the tiny space frantically, trying to find the reason that _level-headed-Ruby_ had resorted to quite literally spitting lead.

When she let out another chamber into the malicious beast, Smolder caught sight of her prey. He actually groaned, rubbing his temples and looking pointedly anywhere but at her or the snake.

Honestly, they were just begging for tinnitus at this rate.

The others moved around in their tents. Mouse was wide awake, sprinting out to aid in whatever crisis. Seaplane rushed as well, Oberon lagging behind as he stifled a yawn.

Smolder didn't look at any of them.

Ruby raised her arms in a placating manner.

"Everything is under control." She spoke calmly. "The transgressor has been dealt with."

She calmly stepped forward and knelt to cradle the monstrosity in her hands.

Mouse let out a strange, almost strangled, noise when he saw what was in her arms. Seaplane stared blankly. The Professor patted his tentmate on the shoulder reassuringly.

The next day, Mr. Princely McSwizzles had a three-hour-long visitation, two-minute-long cremation, and a half hour feast of grilled snake in his honor. Ruby attended each event, passing around small pieces of torn shirts that may or may not have once belonged to the good Doctor Bravestone.


	10. Chapter 10

Ruby Rogers was an aunt first and foremost, then a mercenary, then a waitress (but not during the offseason). Sometimes she played bodyguard, but only for high profile clients who actually told her _what-the-fuck-is-actually-going-on-Smolder(?)_. She had been hired by _Doctor-why-the-hell-not-Bravestone_ as a mercenary. A hired gun, martial artist, and unofficial mother-hen of all team members.

That was just how life worked.

She had never agreed to a position of wingman-of-gay-jungle-men, but sometimes life works in weird-ass ways. This wouldn't be too weird, right?

"Right." She considered scratching the back of her neck, but Ruby decided last minute that it would just display her discomfort more prominently. "So."

Seaplane stared up at her from his seat on a random log like she knew all the secrets in the universe. Ruby wasn't good at this kind of thing.

"Sheldon." He prompted her. Ruby wanted to cough awkwardly. Her eye twitched slightly instead.

"The Professor." Ruby tried to smile slightly. It came off as more of a strangled grimace. "Right."

This was going nowhere.

"So." Seaplane looked her straight in the eye even as he coughed nervously and scratched the base of his neck. Ruby felt her stomach drop for just a second.

Sometimes, this kid acted way too much like her brother used to. And how she wanted to.

"What do I do?" He asked, plain and simple.

Ruby blinked. This was a little different than the whole girl next door drama she had been roped into with Joshua.

"Talk to him?"

Seaplane rolled his eyes.

"What do I _say?_ "

A lesser woman would have flinched.

Ruby thought about her answer for a moment. This was the thirties. Besides, how different was the advice she gave here from the advice she had given to her own brother when it came to approaching someone you liked? Ruby decided to pretend she was telling Josh how to deal with Macy or Peg or Carla. There was no real difference was there? Right. This was exactly the same.

"You have to be you. You know. The whole 'be-yourself' schpiel."

"You are kidding, right?"

"You can't plan too much."

"You sound like my mother."

"But you can't just _wing it_."

"I'm not even kidding."

"That would be suicide..."

"You're just a tad higher pitched."

"..."

"Plus you're a _leedle_ -bit better about word vomit."

"...Thank you? I think?"

"You don't really deal with people much, do you?" Ruby decided then and there that it was going to be a very long day.

Internalized homophobia, a history of asshole boyfriends, and her social ineptitude combined to make her possibly the absolute worst person to deal with this situation. But it's the thirties! It's the modern age! Besides, they're in-a-jungle-in-the-middle-of-fucking-nowhere. Societal norms have no place! Right?

Goddamn, it was going to be a _very,_ extremely, unreasonably long day.


	11. Chapter 11

Mouse was drunk the first time she met him. This was not so much a "usual-thing" as it was a "Mouse-and-Ruby-thing". Whenever important things happened, one of them was always drunk.

She hadn't realized it at the time, because when someone comes to you with a business proposal, several hundred thousand dollars and a really superb looking archeologist friend, you tend to ignore the telltale slur of their voice, stumble in their gait, and the mood swings.

When she figured it out, less than five minutes after they left her little apartment, Ruby had actually slammed her head on the table.

She was out of practice, and it showed.

Ruby would find it easier to tell how drunk Mouse was exactly by the fourth time he had accidentally joined her on her night watches.

One bottle turns to two turns to _three-four-seven-nine_. One hour turns to two turns to _three-four-seven-nine_.

She tells Mouse about her brother, her uncertainties about their teammates, her inability to sleep some nights and how easy it is for her pale skin to burn in the sun. He tells her about his family, his animals back in some Zoological Garden, and even tells her the Peru story, though he swears her to secrecy. Ruby will never look at vineyards the same way.

But she doesn't really mind.

Once, after Ruby tells him a particularly difficult story about her first kill, Mouse tells her about the first time his sisters snuck a cake into the house for his birthday. He had diarrhea for weeks after the fact, but it was worth it to see little Angelica and little Isobella so excited for him. She tells him about Joshua's adventures in the customer service industry and Mouse tells her about an automobile accident that occurred ten years ago in front of his cousin's house.

They are both drunk and weepy and just a little bit too quiet to be okay, but it's nice, almost.

Mouse might be an idiot, but he's one that Ruby, or at least drunk-Ruby, thinks is trustworthy.

When they both awaken to God-awful hangovers one memorable morning, Smolder is quite suspicious of their sudden comradery, borne seemingly overnight.

He isn't as jealous as Ruby would have liked, so she considers rubbing it in his face a little bit, but deems that too troublesome and just passes Mouse a Seaplane-Patented-Hangover-Cure.

Ruby wonders what Smolder would really do- what would he _think?_ \- if he had a drink with them, but Mouse assures her he's a total lightweight when she mentions it to him one night. They laugh over a story of Dr. Bravestone's drunken escapades. Then Ruby mirrors it with stories of Josh or Seaplane or some kid she used to babysit and the night continues from there.

They only swap stories at night.

Smolder, quick on the uptake, is the first to mention it.

He asks if they can keep the noise down, or at least stop drinking all of his spirits, before he tells her very seriously that if she keeps staying up all night, he'll have to knock her out himself.

Ruby tells him that she is touched.

She proceeds to ravage his supply of whiskey and bourbon that night as she laughs with Mouse until the early hours of the following morning. Oberon and Seaplane pretend not to hear them, but that night, unlike usual, they make as much noise as they can.

They both needed this, Ruby could tell. A way to blow off steam, cement themselves in this strange world, and to just decompress from all the stress and drama of the daytime.

It isn't so much as important things that he was drunk for, she amends her thoughts, but the memorable exchanges.

It was a perfect arrangement for the two of them.

Until they ran out of alcohol.

But that's another story entirely.


	12. Chapter 12

Ruby could smell the stench from the opposite side of their little camp.

Seaplane looked a little bit green around the gills. Oberon hyperventilated from behind him, doing his best to look as far away as was physically possible. Mouse was watching with a sort of morbid curiosity. Smolder was just poking it (from a reasonable distance away!) with a machete.

Ruby ignored all of them with the same monotonous deadpan that she tried with most things.

"It ain't gonna bite." A lesser woman might have snickered.

Ruby stuck with internal guffaws.

It was a dead rhino carcass, female from the looks of it.

Her horn was missing, a bloody stump in its place. The eyes were blank and glassy, staring listlessly onward. Her legs were bent awkwardly, more from the way Ruby had dropped her than from any real injury on the rhino's part. The dark skin was thicker than anything Ruby had ever seen and slightly muddy from being rolled painstakingly through the jungle. Thank heaven above for wheelbarrows, honestly. She could not have moved the carcass without the simple machine.

Ruby had dragged it back to camp with the intention of removing the skin for a freaking pillow, but from the looks of things, she wasn't gonna be able to skin it without a group of sick humans to deal with. Rhino skin wasn't ideal, of course, but it's not like sheep just drop dead in the middle of the African rainforests.

"I vote we leave it where we got it from." Seaplane pinched his nose.

"Seconded." Oberon nodded frantically.

"Not a chance!" Ruby growled reproachfully. "Do you know how heavy that thing was? I ain't puttin' it back."

"Western black rhino, or _Diceros bicornis longipes_. Females can weigh up to nine hundred kilos. Those things is practically extinct." Mouse informed them, aghast. "Chances are, this thin' was caught by a poacher. A real horrible, real lucky poacher."

"So, what?" Ruby asked, confused. This really wasn't her forte; she honestly just wanted a pillow.

"So the body's probably poisoned." Smolder cut in. "You put that thing back out there, you know how many vultures you might kill?"

"So you'se on my side?"

"...Yes."

"Jus' checkin', boss. No need to get snippy."

"Hold up." Oberon was doing a fabulous job ignoring the dead animal. "Poison?"

"Poachers kill somethin' out here, right?" Mouse offered dispassionately.

"Yeah." Seaplane nodded.

"What you think starts happenin' when a large animal carcass shows up in the wild?"

"...Decomposition?" Oberon scratched his head.

"Vultures start circling." Smolder cut in again. He had obviously gotten this lecture before. "Which helps alert rangers and police to the fact that the poaching is even happening. Solution? Get rid of the vultures." He prodded the rhino again.

"Poison the carcass," Ruby continued, realization dawning in her. "The vultures all die."

"Bingo." Mouse agreed miserably.

"But aren't vultures the freaky bald garbage men of the jungle?" Seaplane asked blankly.

"Sure," Mouse shrugged. "If freaky bald garbage men usually completely destroy all the diseases that might be clingin' to your garbage and-keep-you-and-all-your-loved-ones-from-gettin'-sick-an'-dyin'!"

His words sped up, passion and righteous fury making him spit viciously at their ignorance.

"Okay." Seaplane nodded quickly, trying to placate his friend. "Vulture equals good guy. Gotcha."

"What are we gonna do with it? If we can't put it back, I mean."

"Skin it?" Ruby offered hopefully.

Mouse gave her a look.

Ruby kicked a rock as she turned away, grumbling.

"The damn thing's poisoned." Mouse pointed out. "You tellin' me you wanna get sick again?"

"Ruby-fucking-Roundhouse never gets sick. " Ruby whispered furiously, fists clenched. Smolder patted her shoulder in a consoling manner. All she wanted was a pillow. Was that really so much to ask for?

"So we bury it?" Oberon pushed onward.

Mouse shook his head.

"We'd best burn it."

And that was that.

They moved camp two days early. Ruby stole several of Mouse's hats and Smolder's wife beaters and stitched them into a wad that could probably pass off as a pillow. At least she got what she wanted, right? Right.


	13. Chapter 13

There are some things in life you don't realize you need to do until you haven't done them in a little over a month and you can feel yourself realize that if nothing happens soon, things are not gonna end up okay for anyone involved.

Like, for example, laundry.

Goddamn, did they need to do laundry.

People were starting to get antsy, and if she was being honest, the dirty clothes were starting to stink to high hell and back. And it wasn't like you could just spend forty minutes feeding it through one of those fancy schmancy clothes washing machines. No, you had to spend a couple hours finding a half decent rock to sit your clothes on while you scrubbed out all the dirt, sweat, blood, and tears. And that could take up to half an hour for each article of clothing, just so long as you didn't forget to let it soak beforehand. And that took another hour or so, easily.

And that was before you even started to dry it, which could take another dozen hours, unless they were moving the camp, in which case it took closer to thirty-six hours.

Laundry was a time-consuming process that Ruby had never really enjoyed, but it was almost indescribably more difficult out here in-the-middle-of-a-jungle-in-the-middle-of-nowhere.

There wasn't much they could do about the wait. Clean clothes were a necessity in life, and Ruby knew better than anyone that it was the smaller details that made the perfect moment perfect. Like showing up to prom in an actual automobile, wearing a mind-bogglingly gorgeous floor-length gown covered in cat hair. There were some things that you just don't mess with, and clean laundry was always one of them for Ruby.

Thank heavens for Mouse, honestly.

The tentative friendship they had formed over Smolder's liquor had changed almost everything about Ruby's laundry routine.

They took turns.

It was beautiful.

Every week, one of them would deal with the laundry for the both of them.

It never stunk up because of how often they cleaned as compared to their teammates, and it didn't feel like either of them was doing an undue amount of work.

And of course, Ruby dealt with her menstrual wrappings and her breast bindings.

(As if Mouse would even know what to do with them if he tried.)

No one argued.

In fact, Seaplane and Smolder had attempted to mirror their arrangement. It hadn't quite worked out due to a missing picture frame, two broken marbles, a ripped bandana, and seven slightly singed socks.

But that's a story for another time.


	14. Chapter 14

It started with a jeep, then the owner, then fifteen illegal rhino tusks, and ended with a kidnapping.

They found the jeep half a klick east of their campsite. Uncomfortably close.

They wouldn't have found it at all if the Professor hadn't stumbled into a nest of chimps- " _not actually chimpanzees, cause ya see, Miss Roundhouse, those things are called bonobos, easy mistake to make, they've only been recognized as an official species for four or five years now..."_

A nest of extremely territorial _bonbons_.

This was her life now.

The bonbons- " _the bonobos!"_ \- the bonbons chased Oberon halfway back to camp before he ended up running straight through some particularly tall grass like an idiot and slammed head first into the hood of the jeep. Later, Mouse diagnosed him with a concussion. Apparently, he had to act as pseudo-medic on more than one occasion for Bravestone, who didn't take good care of himself.

Oberon, oblivious, proceed to climb into the jeep and pass out sprawled out on the back seats.

This was, of course, a horrible idea.

Firstly, he was concussed. You don't go to sleep when you have a concussion, especially when your team doesn't know where you are and when you haven't received any medical attention.

The second reason was that the jeep wasn't empty.

The owner of the jeep called himself "Nigel Billingsley". It was a perfectly normal name. The kind of name that shot right over your head and was immediately deemed unimportant. The kind of name you didn't bother remembering. Just strange enough to be normal and just normal enough that you didn't really care. Ruby wouldn't have cared if it wasn't for the shifty look he gave them when he _informed_ them of his name after they had accidentally broken into his jeep, to try and wake up their comrade, who was, for all intents and purposes, completely dead to the world.

It wasn't all horrible. Despite his seemingly pathological lies, the man was a genuinely decent person. He actively showed concern for the Professor's condition, and even offered them a ride in his _automobile_ (!) to the nearest Red Cross. Smolder had apparently deemed that 'Nigel' was not a threat, and ignored all of Ruby's non-verbal warnings by, in some cases literally, waving her off.

They got in the jeep.

Evidently, that was a bad idea too, but not for the same reasons that Ruby had been humming ominously for several hours. Smolder got motion-sickness. At first, they clamored into the automobile like little children, Ruby watching over them to make sure that she wouldn't hear any cries of ' _Ruuubyyyy! Sheldon's taking up too much space! Tell him to scoot over!'_ or ' _Ruby, can you tell Smolder and Mouse to quit bumpin' gums?'_.

Once everyone was sufficiently settled in (and _not-acting-like-fuckin'-toddlers-for-once-in-their-lives_ ) 'Nigel' put his foot on the gas.

Ruby took the opportunity to ignore her team and focus on one of the first human faces she had seen in a long while.

'Nigel' was everything you expected to see in an explorer. He didn't hide his western appearance, or accent, proud of his ( _British? No, probably Canadian or Aussie or some shit._ ) roots and his _automobile_. The fact that he had an _automobile_ , out here in the middle-of-a-jungle-in-the-middle-of-nowhere was just another point against him, in Ruby's opinion. 'Nigel' wore a beige ensemble that, while practical, didn't do his emaciated form any favors. He had several machetes strapped across various limbs. All in all, he wasn't particularly remarkable. But that was just it.

Ruby was pulled from her thoughts when she heard Smolder's dry heaving.

It took them several minutes to figure out exactly why.

"...Weak stomach…" He grumbled.

Ruby laughed her ass off.

"Shut up.." Smolder groaned miserably.

"Sure thing boss." She snickered, giving him a cheeky salute.

The jeep pulled into a small settlement. One person, a native to the area, stepped out of a small building with a large concrete foundation. 'Nigel' poked his head out of a missing window and started speaking rapidly to the woman in what seemed to be her native tongue. She smiled at the group curiously, eyes softening when they landed on Oberon.

Ruby set her arm on the driver's shoulder, 'Nigel' all but jumping out of his skin as soon as she made contact.

"Billingsley." She said in a warning tone.

Smolder spoke up.

"That Red Cross."

"Right." 'Nigel' agreed, before turning to talk to the native again. She giggled at him, smiling widely. Then she pointed down the gravel road winding through the trees.

'Nigel' tipped his hat at her and they were on their way.

The muggy air and intense heat did not match well with the rickety Jeep and the bumpy road. There was much complaining and jostling as people scrambled to not slam into each other or the car doors. The roads grew more and more treacherous as time passed, roots and stones and unreasonably rocky gravel impeded their progress. They made incredible progress, despite Smolder's newfound slightly green complexion.

It was when they arrived at the Red Cross that the rhino horns became relevant.

But we'll get to that later.


End file.
